Hometeam: Colby Milton shoulders load for Quabbin

Friday

Feb 22, 2013 at 6:00 AM

By Jim Wilson TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

The coaching staff and doctors may have told Colby Milton he was questionable for Thursday night’s Clark Tournament Large Schools semifinal game. But the Quabbin Regional senior never questioned anything.

Milton shook off a shoulder injury suffered in a quarterfinal win over Shepherd Hill and finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds as the fifth-seeded Panthers defeated top-seeded Clinton High, 64-51, at Kneller Athletic Center.

“The last few days, I’ve seen chiropractors for my shoulder because there was no way I was sitting out a Clark Tournament semifinal game in my senior year,” Milton said. “I was so motivated, and once I got out here and started warming up, I knew there was no way I was sitting out this game. We’re one game away from the final and we’re playing the No. 1 seed.”

Milton said he felt a little pain to start the game once he got to banging around, but after a few moves to the basket, he was good to go.

Milton got some help from sophomore Griffin Bennett’s 17 points and senior Adam Majer chipped in 13. That helped offset the absence of Quabbin’s top scorer, Mitch Granese, who suffered a cracked rib and is trying to get back for the Central Mass Division 2 playoffs.

“Last year, we came in as a 1 seed and everyone expected us to win because we had all these seniors,” Milton said. “This year, we’re underdogs and nobody is expecting us to be here, but I love surprising everyone.”

“I can’t say enough about Colby Milton being our physical leader, our spiritual leader,” Quabbin coach Dennis Dextradeur said. “He does some wonderful things out there and is putting together some synergy for those other kids.”

Clinton (19-2) took a 24-21 lead after a 10-0 run to start the second quarter, sparked by four points from Brendan Kittredge (15 points). But the Panthers answered with a 10-4 run to end the half. Bennett had four of his 10 first-half points to close out the run.

“At halftime, Coach Dex came in and got on us about how our defense was,” Milton said. “We really were allowing the ball in the middle and he didn’t like that at all. He said if we kept doing that in the second half, we were going to lose the game, and once he said that, we all knew it was time to step our defense up.”

Clinton tied the game, 31-31, to start the third quarter on a 3-pointer by Matt Notaro, but that ignited a 14-0 Quabbin run that gave the Panthers a 45-31 lead with a minute left in the third.

“It was a stand-around, flat third period but it doesn’t happen because of us, it happened because (Quabbin) defended us pretty well,” Clinton coach Tony Gannon said. “They defended us better than our offense for that seven-minute span.”

The loss snapped the Gaels’ 16-game winning streak and kept them searching for their first Clark title since 1975.

“It’s been a great run and we still have the districts ahead of us, and if you go into that locker room, you know they’re hurting because this means a lot to them,” Gannon said. “We just can’t get past this semifinal. It’s been the school’s seventh time here, and I thought if we put it all together tonight, we might have got it done but we didn’t, and that’s a credit to Quabbin.”

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